Thursday, April 13, 2017

Judith Bergman : Mockeries of Justice in Denmark

Mockeries of Justice in Denmark

An appeal would have sent a
signal to potential terrorists that Danish authorities look sternly upon
logistical assistance to terrorists, and will do everything in their
power to pursue justice.

The only one at risk of actual harm is Lars Hedegaard himself:
his attempted murderer remains at large. "I have resorted to making the
suspected assassin's name as well-known as possible in self-defense."

It is deeply disturbing, not only for the victims, but for all
citizens, when the courts so clearly divorce themselves from pursuing
what most citizens would perceive as justice, and instead appear to
favor those who seek to harm society.

Refusing to implicate Omar El-Hussein's friends in his terrorism,
despite their obvious contributions to his terror deeds, and fining the
victim of a terrorist attack for publicly naming his would-be murderer,
who escaped justice by fleeing the country, inevitably appears like a
mockery of justice, not its fulfillment.

If the legal system in Denmark is anything to go by, being an
accessory to murder is just fine. Attackers are protected to the hilt;
their victims are left unprotected and fined.

In February 2015, the terrorist Omar El-Hussein murdered Danish film
director Finn Nørgaard in front of café Krudttønden in Copenhagen. Later
that night, he killed a Jewish guard in front of the Copenhagen
synagogue. Danish police shot and killed El-Hussein during the
subsequent manhunt.

Four men assisted El-Hussein after he killed the film director: They
helped him get rid of the murder weapon, gave him fresh clothes and
bought him a new bag, which he used to store the gun used to kill the
Jewish guard. They also met with him several times in different places
around Copenhagen in the five hours leading up to the murder of the
Jewish guard. One of those places was an internet café, where El-Hussein
googled for information about the synagogue. The four men were charged
with complicity in the terrorist act against the synagogue.

At the end of September, the Danish District Court acquitted all four of the terrorism charge. The district court found no evidence
that the men knew of El-Hussein's plans to attack the synagogue, when
they met with him after his attack at Krudttønden. Instead, the four men
were convicted of minor charges, such as threats and violence against
prison staff, weapons possession in particularly aggravating
circumstances, and possession of illegal ammunition. Three of the men
were free to go after the sentencing, as their 18 months in custody
meant that they had already served
their sentences, which were sixty days, six months, two and a half
years and three years respectively. One of the four men has already declared
his intention to sue the Danish state for damages amounting to 1
million Danish kroner (USD $150,000) for the 18 months he spent in
custody. The prosecution has decided that it will not appeal the
verdict, which is therefore final.

Appealing the verdict might have been the appropriate
thing to do, even if there were little chance of having the ruling
reversed. An appeal would have sent a signal to potential terrorists
that Danish authorities look sternly upon logistical assistance to
terrorists and will do everything in their power to pursue justice.
Considering that European countries are likely to experience many more
terrorist attacks in the future, the Danish court and the prosecution
both sent a deeply troubling signal to future terrorists and their
helpers, as well as Danish society as a whole.

This is not the only recent Danish court case to be sending the wrong kind of signals. In September, the Danish High Court upheld the District Court's decision
to fine the Danish writer, Lars Hedegaard, 10,000 Danish kroner (USD
$1500) for publishing the name of a terrorist, "BH," who attempted to
murder Hedegaard in his own home in February 2013. BH subsequently fled
from Denmark, but was arrested in Turkey. Denmark wanted him extradited,
but instead Turkey released BH in what was most likely a prisoner exchange with the Islamic State, in 2014.

Hedegaard published the name of his would-be assassin in his book, Attentatet ("The Assassination"),
on Facebook, and on a Swedish website. This, the Danish courts ruled,
was in breach of a court order suppressing the name of the terrorist.
The name of a defendant in a criminal case may be suppressed if
public communication of the name is likely to endanger someone's safety
or cause unnecessary harm. Ostensibly, the court upholds
the court order suppressing the suspected terrorist's name in order to
protect the family of the suspect.
The name, however, was already out in
the press at the time of the court order and has been mentioned
countless times by others on Facebook and elsewhere. Furthermore, the
only one at risk of actual harm is Lars Hedegaard himself: his attempted
murderer remains at large. This was indeed why he publicized the name:
"I have resorted to making the suspected assassin's name as well-known
as possible in self-defense, on the grounds that it increases the
chances that he will be apprehended," Hedegaard explained.

In a Kafkaesque form of inverted justice, the High Court disregarded
this commonsense argument and instead maintained that Hedegaard should
pay the fine, adding insult to injury by claiming that there was no need
on the grounds of self-defense for Hedegaard to publicize the name of
the man who tried to kill him.
Indeed, the High Court found that the
fine should be considerably higher than the 10,000 kroner that the
District Court had ruled that Hedegaard should pay.

Graciously, the High
Court decided
not to raise the fine, because of the "mitigating" circumstance that
Hedegaard had been the target of a murder attempt. How magnanimous of
them!

Denmark's
high court upheld a fine levied against Lars Hedegaard, because he
wrote the name of the man who tried to murder him, in violation of a
court order suppressing the name of the terrorist, who is still at large
and wanted by police.

The Danish authorities did not stop there. A number of activists, in
solidarity with Hedegaard, went ahead and published the name themselves.
Some of them showed up during Hedegaard's court case wearing T-shirts
with the name of the suspected terrorist. The Danish court spent
taxpayer money charging some of those activists for wearing
those T-shirts. Several others -- the publisher of Hedegaard's book, an
artist who painted BH's name on a painting, a priest who mentioned the
name in an article in a Danish newspaper and others -- were also charged with breaching the court order.

It is deeply disturbing, not only for the victims, but for all
citizens, when the courts so clearly divorce themselves from pursuing
what most citizens will perceive as justice, and instead appear to be
favoring those who seek to harm society. Refusing to implicate Omar
El-Hussein's friends in his terrorism, despite their obvious
contributions to his terrorist activities, and fining the victim of a
terrorist attack for publicly naming his would-be murderer, who escaped
justice by fleeing the country, inevitably appears like a mockery of
justice, not its fulfillment.

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